Alfonso Cuaron's beautiful and impressive epic Gravity has been making headlines ever since it debuted on the fall film festival circuit last year, but today it has yet another milestone to add to its incredible list of achievements. IMAX has announced that the sci-fi thriller has become only the third movie ever to make more than $100 million at IMAX theaters alone, joining James Cameron's Avatar and Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises.
Looking at the figures, it's not hard to see how Gravity accomplished this feat. Since being released theatrically last October, Variety says the film has made nearly $700 million worldwide, and it also happens to be a spectacle that truly demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible. What's especially significant about the achievement, however, is that both Avatar and The Dark Knight Rises made more than $1 billion at the global box office, meaning that a higher percentage of Gravity's take came from IMAX screens. Breaking it down, the film has made $48.6 million from IMAX domestically and $51.5 million from overseas.
Warner Bros. has certainly been doing their part to promote the specialized screenings. In addition to initially releasing the movie in both IMAX and 3D, the studio also re-released the film in both formats late last month.In an official statement, Greg Foster, CEO of Imax Entertainment and senior exec VP of Imax Corp., said,
"We congratulate our longtime partners at Warner Bros., along with writer-director-producer Alfonso Cuaron, and producer David Heyman, for crafting a visually and emotionally stunning film that appeals to IMAX audiences around the world."
For an inside look at Gravity's connection to the expanded format, be sure to watch the featurette below:
While this is a big win for Cuaron's film, we are now only a few weeks away from some even bigger news. This year's Academy Awards are scheduled to be held on March 2nd, and the movie is up for prizes in 10 different categories, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress for Sandra Bullock. The film is a favorite to win in just about every technical category and certainly one of the favorites to win in the major one. The question remains, however, whether or not it will have the juice to squeeze out a win. Do you think it will?
